


189.9

by tsunderei



Series: Future!Kagehina [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Anxiety, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Future, Kageyama Tobio-centric, M/M, Pro Volleyball Player Hinata Shouyou, Pro Volleyball Player Kageyama Tobio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 11:25:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11966376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsunderei/pseuds/tsunderei
Summary: Kageyama worries. He worries a lot.





	189.9

**Author's Note:**

> Okay y’all, I wrote 90% of this in like 2015 but it never reached completion before I left. I was cleaning out my documents the other day and thought it was a shame to abandon this one because, well, it’s inconsistent but also decent writing that'll just end up sitting here and I felt sad for it. So I edited and finished it (and I guess I'm back now). Enjoy!

It’s been little over four months since the last time Kageyama visited his parents. He had hoped that at least the ever-familiar constant of _home_ would have a calming effect on him.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t.

He closes the door behind him as quietly as possible, not wanting to announce his arrival right away. Looking around it seems everything is more or less in the same place, the scents and sounds are all familiar to him, except the size of the apartment somehow isn’t. It feels smaller than usual. Even the genkan, which isn’t that big to begin with, appears to have shrunk, appearing narrow and cramped despite its tidiness.

Kageyama chokes back a sigh and bends over, crouching all the way down until he’s sitting on the floor and can rest his forehead against his knees. He knows well enough that houses and apartments don’t shrink like that. He supposes it’s normal to feel this way, to watch the spaciousness of childhood and adolescence gradually disappear, but that’s not it. Lately he has felt too big for his surroundings regardless of where he is. Even in wide-open areas and large venues he enters feeling too visible, too obvious – like a giant. Sometimes he needs a private moment where he can make himself small. At 189.9 centimeters that’s not always easy, but it shouldn’t have to feel like this.

He drags his hands across his face, his calloused fingertips dry against his skin. He thinks about his new team; all of them professional, all of them skilled, all of them previous junior winners of something, just like himself. He thinks about the trust and the praise and the high-fives he’s not sure he deserves. He thinks about the expectations that have been placed on him, high expectations backed up by good references. He thinks about how he gives every game and every practice 110%, because he wouldn’t dare give anything less.

He thinks about Hinata, his teammate and partner, who’s had him absolutely head over heels in love for a handful of years now. He thinks about how completely lucky he is to have him.

Kageyama lets his arms drop and looks at his hands, turning them over in the dim light. Although they are the most important tools of his trade, he used to think of his hands as too cold and too rough, hands that are almost always pushing too hard, pushing away. Just like when setting a ball, he’s pushing something away from himself. But even though his hands are cold they’re warm against Hinata. His palms have learned the contours and dips and slopes of his entire being, his fingers softening when he touches him. Just like when setting a ball, he pushes away but aims to connect, and Hinata helps him do that. He always has, in every way.

Kageyama thinks about how he’s not so sure he deserves him. He thinks about how worried he is. He thinks about how he’s _always_ thinking.

He finally gets up from the floor, slowly, and calls out into the apartment. “I’m home.”

A sound of startled clatter emerges from the kitchen, followed by quick footsteps. Moments later his mother appears in the doorway, her shocked expression turning into a beaming smile at the sight of him.

“Tobio!” She rushes forward and pulls him into a warm, tight hug. “I didn’t except you so soon! I didn’t even hear you come in; you’re like a cat!”

She’s much shorter than him even though he’s still standing in the dip of the genkan, and she nearly disappears into his embrace. Again, Kageyama feels like he’s crowding the space around him, feels misplaced in his unnecessarily ginormous body. In moments like these it seems unlikely that he was once so small he could hide behind his parents’ legs. It’s weird that he used to be so little he could bump his forehead against his father’s knee or that he had to reach up for the hem of his mother’s skirt. He’s filled out his body by now, his height no longer making his limbs look awkward, but he supposes he’ll always feel too tall and lanky next to his petite mother.

She lets go of him, allowing him to take his shoes off.

“For how long will you be staying this time?”

“Um, well, there’s a championship strategy meeting the day after tomorrow, and then there’s practice and classes…” Kageyama trails off, never really answering her question.

“Aww, so you can’t stay long? What a shame…” She frowns, her lips forming into a small pout, and Kageyama gets a direct reminder of how alike they are. “If you stayed a couple more days you’d be here for when your father returns, I’m sure he’d want to see you.”

“Yeah… I really can’t, I’m sorry…” Kageyama shrugs against the small stab of guilt in his gut. “We have to catch the train back tomorrow already.”

“‘We’? So Shouyou-kun is visiting his family, too?”

It’s embarrassing how easily she picks up on his growing habit of automatically including Hinata whenever he’s talking about himself. It’s not like he can help it, seeing how they’re always together. He’s part of a ‘we’ now, a single item of ‘us’. They have become an extended part of each other. Whenever the coach or a teammate addresses either of them, they both look up.

“…Yeah,” Kageyama says again and brings his hand up to his hair in a futile attempt to hide the pink tint on his cheeks. “We came here together, so…”

His mother smiles, looks fondly at the sight of his reddening ears, but she leaves it at that.

“Alright, I guess it can’t be helped. I’ve told your father, over and over again, that he got this promotion far too late. When you were younger the two of us were always working, but now that we’re both finally free to spend more time at home with you, you’ve already moved out. It’s completely our fault that we didn’t realize sooner you’d grow up so quickly.” She reaches out and pulls him into another hug. “I’m just so happy you decided to spend what little free time you have to come home! Did you have dinner yet?”

“Not yet. What’re we having?”

“Beef curry, if you’ll help me cut the vegetables. I’ve already started.”

Kageyama perks up in pure expectation and, as if on cue, his stomach growls loudly. He follows her into the kitchen and dumps his bag on the nearest chair, just in time to catch the apron that is tossed his way. He grabs a knife and a cutting board and starts working on the carrots, cutting them into chunky bite-size pieces before moving on to the potatoes. Next to him, his mother pours a generous portion of rice into a bowl while casually updating him on daily life at home.

It reminds Kageyama a lot of how he and Hinata usually cook dinner back at their apartment in Tokyo. Hinata is the one who stands for most of the talking and the cooking, while Kageyama gets assigned to chopping vegetables and unscrewing various jars and bottles. It’s just the way he likes it, the way _they_ like it, and the fact that Hinata probably knows him just as well as his mother does catches him by surprise.

He misses him, even now. He only saw Hinata mere hours ago, he’s no more than thirty minutes away by bike, and he will see him again first thing in the morning – but he misses him already. The realization hits his chest so strongly that it startles him a little.

“Is something wrong? You seem worried.”

Kageyama blinks and finds that he has stopped cutting vegetables, the knife in his hand hovering right above half a piece of potato. He clutches the handle tightly while his brain makes a one-eighty away from the relative safety of Hinata and again ends up churning around the next practice, the next game, the next opponent, the next toss. The kitchen feels small around him again and he’s practically towering above the bench he once could reach only by standing on a chair.

Yes, he _is_ worried. He’s always worried.

He quickly shakes his head in spite of himself, almost out of habit. “It’s nothing.”

His mother looks at him for a short moment, a moment that feels like it lasts longer than it actually does, before she turns her attention back to making dinner.

“Well, you don’t have to tell _me_ ,” she says. “And you’re my son. Of course I’ll be biased in any advice I can give, but if you _want_ … you can confide in me.”

Kageyama watches her as she takes out a pot and pours some vegetable oil in it. He bites his lip, hesitant. She’s not pressuring him but he knows she’s waiting for him to say something, whether it’s accepting her offer or declining it. It’s hard for him to confide in anyone, no matter the subject, but he also knows that he can tell his mother anything and that he’ll probably regret it if he doesn’t. He decides to at least start somewhere and see how far it’ll take him.

“It’s just… I don’t know.” He shrugs at the potatoes. “The team’s so new and everyone’s really good and… It’s kind of my responsibility to bring out a player’s potential, but because they’re all good I feel like they already know what their potential is, and if I don’t help them meet the potential they expect then I have no business organizing the offense. It’s like… It’s like I stand out too much because of it, and… I’m a setter. I’m not used to that. A setter shouldn’t stand out.”

The words end up tumbling out of him in a rush, somewhat clumsy but far more coherent than Kageyama had expected. The last half potato is still sitting on the cutting board, untouched, but he already knew this kind of multitasking wasn’t his thing.

“Did it feel good to get that off your chest?”

Kageyama gives it a thought and then nods. He didn’t expect it to be a quick fix but it didn’t make it worse either. And the kitchen has stopped shrinking for now. His mother smiles at him.

“Tobio, I know you feel like you’re under a lot of pressure, and sometimes that pressure is very real. But you do have a voice and you’ve learned how to use it.” She turns to the chunks of beef in front of her and sprinkles them with salt and pepper. “Apart from your teammates you also have a captain and a coach. They’re all there to listen and co-operate, but they can’t know what you’re anxious about if you don’t tell them.”

Kageyama gives a small grunt of reluctant agreement, which does nothing but earn him an offended frown and a nudge in the side.

“Seriously, I mean it. You boys can’t make this team function just by being regular players. A team isn’t automatically good just because you’re all talented. There must be some degree of friendship between you as well? You do talk to each other, right? Hang out in your spare time?”

Kageyama doesn’t dare to glare back at her so he just glares at the pot on the stove instead.

“Of course we do. Doesn’t mean friendships happen easily,” he mutters. “At least they don’t for me.”

“Really, now.” His mother rolls her eyes at him, exasperated. “You are all grown young men, you know that making friends is a two-way thing. And you’re right, these things used to be agonizing and never came easy for you, but you’ve turned twenty. You need to understand that you’re a lot more approachable and kinder than you think. In my eyes you’ve always been a good boy with a solid personality. Besides, the friends you’re making now won’t be at all like the friends you had in middle school.”

The last sentence is barely out of her mouth before there’s an abrupt pause and she falls quiet. Kageyama can tell how she tenses up next to him, and a flash of regret flits across her face.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Tobio,” she says softly and reaches up to brush her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. “I guess I should have rephrased that.”

Both of his parents are well aware of how his time in middle school played out. Truth is, it doesn’t really matter to Kageyama anymore. It’s okay that his mother still makes the mistake of referring to his non-existent middle school friends. Back then he always pretended that he didn’t care, that his only concern was to get better at volleyball, but his mother knew better than anyone how he really felt. She knew that being rejected by his teammates left a bigger impression on him than he wanted to admit. She wished nothing more for him than to make friends and good memories, just like everyone else. Kageyama got over it, but he understands that his mother’s slip of the tongue is just what’s left of her old wishful thinking. He feels a little bad about it.

“There’s nothing to apologize for.” Kageyama chops up the rest of the potatoes and pushes them to the side to make room for the onions. “It’s all in the past now so it’s fine.”

She looks at him for a quiet, thoughtful moment, making him think she’s not at all convinced by this, that she somehow picked up on something else, just like when he brought home notes and slips from school but intentionally left out his report card. But in the end she just smiles and reaches up on her tiptoes so she can ruffle his hair.

“It’ll be fine, dear. I know you’re anxious about many things but you have Shouyou-kun by your side,” she adds lightly. “Things are always a bit better when you love someone.” She carefully pries the knife out of his hand before he finds time to be embarrassed. “Now, go wash up and leave the rest of the vegetables to me.”

 

**

 

Later that night Kageyama goes to bed with a full stomach and a much calmer heart. His room does feel a lot smaller now than what it used to, not to mention his bed, but it also feels small in a way that’s natural. These are surroundings he was meant to outgrow.

He’s just starting to feel drowsy when his cellphone soundlessly lights up next to him, illuminating the shadows stretching across the roof. He squints at the bright screen. It’s a goodnight text from Hinata.

_nighty night tobio sleep well can’t wait to see u tomorrow!!!!! xoxoxoxo_

Kageyama buries his blushing face halfway into the pillow, despite the fact that no one can see him, and smiles stupidly at his phone. Even after all this time, Hinata still manages to do this to him somehow, and it’s both really nice and really annoying. Kageyama knows he has his stupid moments of self-doubt, he knows he sometimes overcomplicates things, but he also knows that they’re together. That much is simple. And he is the happiest every time he re-discovers this fact.

 

**

 

“Man, I’m so tired! And _so_ freakin’ hungry!”

Hinata toes his shoes off and stomps into the apartment, not bothering to turn on the lights in the passing. He drops both himself and his bag onto the nearest kitchen chair and groans, looking positively miserable. Kageyama follows him, turning on the lights in his wake and rolling his eyes as Hinata flops dramatically across the table.

“You’re hungry _again_ even though our moms made us both huge bentos and we ate it all on the way here? We could have opened a damn restaurant in that train car.” Kageyama leaves his bag on the floor and walks over to ruffle Hinata’s hair. “You do know you’re no longer a growing boy, right? At this point you’re just going to grow _wider._ ”

Hinata swats lazily at his hand and glares up at him. “Wipe that stupid smirk off your face and _feed me_. I want udon.”

“We don’t have udon, you idiot.”

Hinata yawns widely, as though this reply doesn’t impress him in the slightest, and stretches out over the table. He looks up, his glare now replaced with a pair of big and glossy post-yawn eyes that Kageyama knows he can’t possibly turn down. He’s 100% sure Hinata knows this, too.

“The convenience store right on the corner though…” Hinata continues with a slight hint of innocence. “It’s open 24/7… I bet _they_ have udon…”

Kageyama stares at him for a long moment, trying to silently glare his way out of this obvious persuasion game, before he sighs and reluctantly admits defeat. “I’m letting you boss me around far too much…”

“The place is only five minutes away. Three, if you run.”

“Shut up.”

“Thank you, Tobio!”

Kageyama chucks one of his slippers at him and escapes through the door before Hinata realizes that he’s smiling.

 

**

 

The convenience store Hinata sent him running to (and Kageyama _did_ jog the last few meters, though he won’t ever admit to that) really is no more than five minutes away and literally right on the corner of their block. There are still plenty of people crowding the streets even though it’s getting quite late, but a convenience store isn’t the hottest place to be at this hour. It’s more or less empty, save for a small group of high school students huddled next to the magazines and an elderly man carefully studying the nutrition label on a box of canned beans.

Kageyama nods in response to the cashier’s greeting and makes his way to the packaged foods aisle. He picks a couple of cups of instant udon and, as an afterthought, grabs a small bag of chips just because he knows that Hinata’s appetite basically functions like a black hole. He cuts across the aisles, trying to think of anything else he should get while he’s there, but this kind of planning ahead hasn’t quite settled in him. He reaches into his pocket for his phone, aiming to shoot a quick message at Hinata to see if there’s anything else he wants, before realizing he left his phone at home.

He gives up on sensible grocery shopping and makes his way past the magazines, deserted by now, and slows down to scan the front pages. Among glossy pictures of idols and models he spots the sports magazine he and Hinata were recently featured in. It stands out like a beacon among all the pinks and yellows and Kageyama quickly nudges it behind another magazine. The picture of them is only a small square in the bottom right corner, one of their official pro-shots, but stuff like this is still embarrassing enough to make his ears burn. If this really becomes a regular thing in the future it’s going to take some time getting used to, at least for Kageyama.

He takes half a step back and looks at some of the other front pages. He stops at a headline that says ‘ _First love never lasts!_ ’. It’s connected to some popular actor’s interview, but Kageyama picks the magazine up and reads the headline again, his lips silently mouthing the words. First love never lasts.

It sounds like a verdict, like something that would typically be set in stone.

Hinata is Kageyama’s first love. Which is no wonder, when he thinks about it. Hinata is super easy to love. Most of the time Kageyama is the one who poses a challenge, but Hinata has always dealt with him amiably. He always knows what to do and say, sometimes lightly just treading the borders of his mood until it stabilizes, sometimes going in without hesitation and calling Kageyama out on his bullshit. Other times again he settles for a pointed quiet that lasts until Kageyama finally realizes he’s said or done something stupid. He’s still learning, on the undecided border of impatient and mellow, how the fire in his chest can be transformed into proper words. The problem is that he tends to drop into these moments of insecurity, like the moment that is slowly seeping into his veins right now. Pointlessly worrying about his career is one thing. Pointlessly worrying about his relationship with Hinata is another. It's much worse.

Again Kageyama feels like he’s far too big for his surroundings. His breath catches in his throat and he’s still staring at the magazine in his hands, which by now hardly seems any bigger than a regular playing card. He wonders if he’s going to have some sort of panic attack, right here among boxed lunches and pickled vegetables. He hasn’t truly had a panic attack in years, never once since meeting Hinata, and he doesn’t really remember how he used to handle it. Just knowing that makes small beads of sweat pop up on his forehead.

“Excuse me, young man.”

He is yanked out of his increasingly desperate thoughts by an unknown voice suddenly addressing him. He turns around, feeling a little dazed and numb, and finds himself face to face with the elderly man he spotted earlier.

“Uh… Yes?”

“Could you please get a couple of those canned beef slices for me?” He points at the very top shelf right behind Kageyama. “You can probably reach that high.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sure.”

The old man thanks him as he’s handed the canned beef. Then he nods towards the now somewhat crumpled magazine trapped in Kageyama’s clammy fist.

“That is absolutely not true, I hope you know that.”

Kageyama blinks stupidly. “Um… What’s not true…?”

“How first love doesn’t last.”

“Okay…?”

The old man smiles up at him, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “It just seemed like it was deeply worrying you. You had a rather troubled look on your face.”

Kageyama feels himself turn a shade that’s probably close to beet red and glances everywhere but at the man next to him. First of all it’s embarrassing that he can’t even control his facial expressions enough to not attract attention to himself, and secondly, he’s really not very keen on having any kind of conversation with a complete stranger. He concentrates on his heart instead and how it seems to make strange attempts at leaping downwards, like it’s aiming for his gut.

“Such things are not important. First love, second love, third love – in a world like this it’s not something worth agonizing over. What matters is the love you have here and now, and not what number you assign to it.”

There’s an abrupt moment of silence in which Kageyama can only hear the steady hum of the display refrigerators and the dull beat of his own heart, which is now seemingly trying to make its way past his eardrums.

“I wasn’t agonizing,” he mutters with a scowl, not really knowing what else to say.

“Oh, of course not.” The man just laughs heartily and waves his hand as though fanning away imaginary cigarette smoke. “Never mind the ramblings of an old man! You’re so tall anyway! I bet you can easily spot reason from all the way up there!”

 

**

 

Kageyama walks the distance home much slower than intended. He weaves his way through the late night crowd, thinking how stupid it is to take advice from a complete stranger and also how stupid it is to get panicky over a gossip magazine. It seems stupid now but it was perfectly justifiable in the moment. Maybe he should be able to spot reason at 189.9 centimeters. Maybe he should be tall enough by now to have outgrown his anxiety. If only it was that easy.

When he finally reaches the apartment he’s hardly found time to close the door behind him before he’s tackled by a blur of flailing limbs and bright orange hair. The tight embrace momentarily knocks the air right out of him. He splutters and stumbles backwards, the grocery bag in his hand dropping to the floor as his back hits the door with a dull thud.

“You _idiot_!” Hinata blurts out before Kageyama can even begin to yell at him. “You took over an hour on something that should have taken you ten minutes! And you didn’t even bring your phone! I was just about to go look for you, you jerk, I thought something had happened!”

Hinata locks his arms tightly around Kageyama’s waist and buries his face in his shirt. He sounds a little choked up, as though a sob is just waiting to escape his throat.

“I thought… For a minute I thought you’d actually gone and just left me.”

Kageyama is completely blindsided by that last comment. He stares in surprise down at the messy crown of Hinata’s head.

“Why would you think that, dumbass?” he asks, the words coming out without any real force behind them.

“Because you always worry,” Hinata says after a long pause, his voice muffled. “I’ve read things about people who worry so much they just snap. And I know that you’ve been worrying a lot lately.” There’s another pause. Hinata snuffles into the fabric of Kageyama’s shirt. “Sometimes… sometimes I think this is too good to be true. You and me. If you go away I don’t know what I’d do. And you never tell me anything, so... I got scared.”

Time seems to slow down and then stop for a second or two, gradually coming to a complete standstill inside the bubble that has formed around them. Kageyama wraps his arms around Hinata’s slightly trembling shoulders and hugs him.

“You really were...?” he asks, unable to help the breathless tone of realization and disbelief in his voice. “You were scared?”

Hinata finally looks up at him. His cheeks are light pink and his eyelashes are glistening with tears. He frowns, annoyed.

“Of course I was! Not even _you_ are so stupid you need an hour to buy freakin’ udon from the corner store! My mind jumped at the worst possible conclusions!”

“I’m sorry. I promise I’m not going anywhere.”

Hinata drags he back of his hand across his eyes and snuffles again. “I worry, you know.”

“Hey, that’s my line.”

“Stupid Tobio.”

“Right here,” Kageyama mutters.

Hinata reaches up on his tiptoes and loops his arms around his neck so he can kiss him. He is a lighthouse and Kageyama’s coordinates are always set on him. Without him, he would definitely be lost. This is home, anywhere that is next to Hinata. This is where his surroundings are normal and familiar, and he’s been right here all along. Kageyama thinks that by now he must have found his way back to the 189.9 centimeters he’s comfortable with. There’s really nothing to worry about.

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to write chronically anxious Kageyama. And Kageyama’s Mom. Also the meanest thing I actually did to him here was to have him stop growing at exactly 189.9 cm.
> 
> Feel free to come and talk to me on twitter @[tsun_derei](https://twitter.com/tsun_derei)!


End file.
